Appearing attractive, and feeling attractive, is a goal of many in choosing what they wear. While some people may attribute this to vanity, in fact one's self image and emotional well being can be related to their feelings about how they look. Whether or not that is as a result of societal pressure, and whether or not that pressure is fair, it is still a fact.
Moreover, the desire to feel attractive may in many instances be acutely and understandably strong, for example, in the situation where a woman has had either a single or double mastectomy. When a woman has a mastectomy, she faces many difficult emotional issues, including her mortality, based on the physical condition such as breast cancer which gave rise to the need for the mastectomy. Obviously, among the other issues is a concern for how she is perceived by others, with there being a strong desire to not want to feel “different”, to just be “normal” again, and her appearance (including her perception of her appearance) can have a significant impact on that.
Of course, women who have had single and double mastectomies face physical as well as emotional challenges. For example, the mastectomy procedure can cause the woman to lose mobility and strength in her upper body and arms. Further, the woman may be left with pain which may further make it difficult to move her arms as she did before the surgery. As a result, it is often not only difficult and frustrating, but in some cases even physically impossible to put on or take off clothing items over her head, or which button anywhere but in the front. This effectively limits the garments which are available for her to wear, at a time when self image and confidence may most require that she be able to wear attractive clothes and feel attractive.
It should also be appreciated that while brassieres which support prosthesis are well known and available, the upper part of such brassieres tends to be higher on the woman's upper chest (e.g., while there are some prosthesis supporting brassieres which are low cut relative to other prosthesis supporting brassieres, even those are cut relatively higher than normal “low cut” brassieres). As a result, women wearing such brassieres have essentially been required to wear blouses with relatively high neck lines, with their apparel choices in the marketplace heretofore severely limited. While blouses with high neck lines can certainly be fashionable and attractive in their own right, women in such situations could have their self esteem and emotional health boosted appreciably by being able to wear something lower cut, pretty and alluring, not only because it feels good to feel attractive to others, but also because it helps them to feel that, despite their surgery, they are still normal, desirable women who have not forever lost that part of their previous life. In this respect, it should also be appreciated that even among those women whose husbands and friends truly believe they are as beautiful as they ever were, the nature of the situation, and particularly the unease which the women will almost unavoidably feel about themselves, leaves genuine emotional unease about their appearance.
Moreover, while prosthesis supporting brassieres are often higher than other brassieres though not up to the neckline, this does not mean that the woman may wear tops or blouses which are cut down to the top of the brassiere. That is, blouses which the woman may comfortably wear not only must typically be buttoned up the front, but they must also be relatively loosely fitting. Certainly, it is difficult to wear a tightly fitting blouse, as such blouses or tops are almost universally of a stretch type requiring that they be put on (and taken off) over the woman's head, which may be difficult if not impossible as previously noted. As a result, however, the loosely fitting (comfortable) blouse will fall away from the woman (e.g., when she bends forward), creating a gap allowing someone in front of her to see inside the blouse. This condition is undesirable for women of all conditions, with or without mastectomies. In order to protect against this, the blouses have been required to have a significantly higher (less revealing) neckline than the top of the brassiere.
The present invention is directed toward overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above.